


Snowfall

by BabyCharmander



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Coco Locos Fluff Off, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Snow, Snowball Fight, and he's never seen snow before, chich is a grumpy old man, except instead of singing he's screaming, he's basically like jack skellington singing "what's this", he's okay though, héctor is héctor, they are friends i will fight you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 22:49:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16820008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabyCharmander/pseuds/BabyCharmander
Summary: Héctor thought he was used to the Land of the Dead by now. But even after six years, he hasn't seen all of its strange weather patterns. Luckily his nearly forgotten family is there to help.





	Snowfall

**Author's Note:**

> "People are jerks. But not you."
> 
> (Now with illustrations by [dara/Elletoria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elletoria/pseuds/Elletoria)!)

Héctor wished he was home.

He lay awake in bed, not opening his eyes quite yet. If he really concentrated, he could hear Ernesto snoring softly next to him, sleeping just as peacefully as if he were in his own house. Or maybe even moreso... Ernesto always seemed the most at ease when they were on the road, particularly when they had a good crowd.

Héctor felt anything but energized, and to make matters worse, he couldn't sleep. His mind kept drifting back to Santa Cecilia, and Imelda, and Coco... The trip had gone much longer than planned; he'd already passed his birthday, and it was going to be Christmas soon. If all went well, he would catch Ernesto in the right mood later and talk about heading home sooner than they had planned. He just needed to get the words right. _Ernesto, wouldn't it be nice to be home for Christmas?_ No, no, Ernesto wasn't in good standing with his family and wouldn't want to hang around them for the holiday. _What do you say we do a special Christmas performance back home?_ That might be more likely to sway his opinion, but then maybe Ernesto would think it was just a temporary stop. He needed to... to...

A shiver racked his body. He needed to _think_ through this stupid cold! Had Ernesto stolen the sheets again? Grumbling, Héctor reached over to snatch the sheets away, fumbling around until his hand felt purchase against something soft, which he gave a forceful tug.

The world tipped sideways and Héctor found himself on the floor, having successfully rocked his hammock enough to dump himself out.

...his hammock.

Lifting his head, he looked down at his body, saw his own bones, and grimaced, letting his head fall back with a clunk.

He wasn't traveling with Ernesto. He hadn't been for about six years now. He was in his rickety little shanty with nothing but a hammock, a chair, a few crates that served as a table, and a guitar. He wasn't preparing to go home. He wasn’t even alive.

Normally he would just try to go back to sleep where he lay, one foot still sitting in the hammock and the rest of him spilled out over the floor, and just try to forget the harsh reality he was in for a while. The problem was... just like in the dream, it was cold.

Really, _really_ cold.

Shivering, Héctor forced himself back up to his feet and hunted around for the faded mariachi jacket he'd been wearing for a few years now. He untangled it from his hammock, slipped into it, and shivered again. It was still terribly cold. The temperature had been dropping over the past few days, but this was ridiculous. Perhaps it was raining again, but he didn't hear anything outside. Maybe it had rained while he was asleep? How close was it to another flood?

With a resigned sigh, Héctor rubbed his eyes as he walked the three paces from his hammock to his door, threw it open, and stepped outside.

His bare foot made contact with something very cold and very wet the same second he registered just how _white_ it was outside. Héctor fell backward with a shriek (managing a higher octave than he could usually grito) and staggered backward into his shack. Slipping on a few stray papers he had scattered over the floor, he found himself crashing into something large and wooden, which promptly shattered at the impact.

For a few moments he sat there, staring at nothing in absolute bewilderment as he tried to process just what had happened. His bare foot was still wet and felt like ice, his spine and tailbone smarted from where he'd fallen, and there was a lot of broken wood lying around him.

...Mierda. He'd liked that chair.

Shakily he stood, creeping back to the door, only to jump back with another yelp as a squat figure stepped into the doorway.

"That was some grito," the skeleton mused, leaning against the door frame and raising an eyebrow. He was holding a long object that Héctor initially assumed to be a cane, though he didn't hold it like one.

"Um... uh." Héctor's hand went to grab his wrist as he stood there dumbly for a moment before remembering his manners. "Gracias. Uh, buenas dias, Chicharrón.” It _was_ still morning, right? He was pretty sure. “Do you mind, ah... telling me what's going on?"

"Why, did you go blind overnight? What do you _think_ happened?"

Héctor bit his lip, forcing himself to peer past Chicharrón and out into the expanse of whiteness behind him. Stepping closer, he could see the white covering the boardwalks and the shanties themselves, and more of it was drifting down from the sky in little flakes, and...

"Is... is this _snow_?" he stammered, mouth agape.

Chicharrón seemed far less alarmed. "Yep."

"But... but it doesn't... we're not in the mountains!" Héctor cried, throwing out his arms. "What is this?!"

"We're not in Oaxaca, either, in case you forgot." The old man rolled his eyes. "Or in the Land of the Living."

"But... but Chich, it doesn't _snow_!"

"It does in the Land of the Dead."

"But... I-I've been here for six years now and it hasn't..."

"Some years it does, some years it don't. It's funny like that." Chicharrón looked him in the eye. "Now what're you gonna do about it?"

Héctor blinked. "I... qué? I don't think I can do anything about it. It's..." He gestured outside helplessly. " _Snow._ "

"Not what I meant, idiota." Drawing back his foot, Chicharrón gave the doorframe a swift kick, causing the entire shanty to tremble. A few flakes of cold white powder drifted down from gaps in the ceiling. "See that?"

Looking from his ceiling to the snow on the floor, Héctor's frame drooped. "Oh..."

"You need to clean the snow off of your roof and patch it," Chicharrón said, gesturing up at the ceiling, "’nless you wanna wake up in a snowdrift."

"Ay, no kidding." Héctor scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "I don't have a shovel, though, and..."

Before he could finish talking, the old man shoved the long object he'd been carrying into Héctor's arms. It was not a cane as he'd thought, but a broom. "Don't use a shovel. You'll break your roof. Use this. It'll be safer."

For the first time that morning, Héctor gave a smile. "Gracias, Chicharrón. You're always..."

"And when you're done with that, get over to my bungalow and clean off my roof. Don't dawdle."

Before he could protest, Chicharrón had already turned around, stomping out across the snow-covered planks in his weathered, sturdy boots. Héctor watched him, partially amazed that the old man could just walk out into the snow like that, but also mesmerized by the way his boots kicked up the snow in big clumps before sinking down into it once more. Looking down at his bare feet, Héctor grimaced; no, he was not going to walk out there without some form of footwear.

Looking around his paper- and snow-strewn floor, he found his shoes sitting close to the doorway. Ever since he'd... well, ever since he lost the ability to maintain a steady job, he wasn't able to replace his clothing so easily, and he wasn't sure when he'd be able to get his hands on a new pair of shoes. So he found himself wearing them less frequently, saving them for "special" occasions, usually when he walked up to the higher parts of the towers. On one hand, he really didn't want them to get ruined in the snow. On the other hand... the only other option was walking out into that mess barefoot, and he could barely stand doing that for half a second. Certainly not long enough to climb up onto his roof, clean it off, repair it, and then walk across town to clean Chicharrón's roof.

With a resigned sigh, Héctor set the broom aside and slipped his shoes on. Hopefully this wouldn't take too long, and he could huddle up in his shack for a while and try to get warm enough to focus on some writing, or guitar playing, or something other than the cold. Perhaps, he thought, there were songs to be written about the snow.

Some of the snow on his roof chose that moment to drift down from the ceiling and dust over his head and shoulders, and he gave a shudder. He'd have time to think about what songs he could write about the snow _after_ he took care of it.

Facing the door once again, Héctor stepped up to the snow and hesitated. The snowy expanse lay out before him, broken only by the deep boot prints leading to and from his shanty and the faint impression of half of his foot, when he'd initially stepped in without thinking. Biting his lip, he moved his leg forward, hesitantly bringing his foot down.

His shoes, nice as they once were, had not been made with snow in mind, as he quickly found out. They did not entirely keep the cold out (a fact that wasn't exactly helped by his lack of socks), and he found himself shivering as his foot sank into the snow. Additionally, the shoe turned out to have a small hole close to the sole, which he was immediately made aware of as the melting snow seeped into it.

This was not going to be an enjoyable day.

Still, Chicharrón was right; if he didn't want the snow to cause his roof to cave in, he'd have to do something about it, snow-proof shoes or no snow-proof shoes.

As bitter as the cold was, though, Héctor still couldn't help staring down at the snow in wonder. He'd known about it, but seeing it was something different entirely. It was... strangely beautiful, in a way. Stooping down, he picked up a handful of it, gritting his teeth against the cold and holding up the white powder. It was less powdery than it looked, feeling more wet and heavy. When he let it go, rather than drifting slowly from his hands, it fell in a great clump to the ground, leaving his hands wet and chilly. Experimentally he picked up another clump and pressed it between his hands, marveling at the crunching noise it made as the snow mashed together, forming a hard lump. But by this point his hands nearly felt numb with cold, and he dropped the snow again, wincing. He'd never get used to this.

Shaking his hands dry and rubbing them against each other, he peered up at his roof, frowning at the sight of several inches of snow atop it, with more being added by the gentle snowfall. Well, best get to work on that before his roof caved in, he thought.

Off to the side of his door were several planks of wood that had been nailed into the side (unbroken ladders were scarce, and Chicharrón had told him that he needed a way to climb up to his roof in case it needed repairs, which it did, frequently). These were also partially covered in snow, but that wouldn’t be too much of a problem. Héctor set out to climbing the thing, reaching up to one of the handholds to pull himself up, and put his foot on one of the lower rungs.

It was then he discovered another way that his shoes were not made for snow: the soles were worn completely smooth, and immediately slipped off the rung.

With a yelp he crashed back to the ground, collapsing into a pile of bones, before giving a disgusted growl.

It took a lot of slipping and falling and hanging from the top rung, but eventually Héctor managed to scramble up atop his roof, finding himself gasping for breath and kneeling in the snow. Right. Now he just had to take the broom, and knock... the snow... off... of...

...he'd left the broom in his shack.

With a lot of mumbled curses and several more instances of slipping on the stupid rungs, Héctor finally made it up to his roof, broom in tow, and got to work knocking the snow off. By this point, much of the snow had seeped through his clothing, and his bones were clattering audibly with how much he was shivering. "This is terrible," he grumbled, knocking another clump to the ground as he fought to stay more-or-less upright on his roof. "Never had to deal with this back in Santa Cecilia..."

If he'd still had a heart, that thought would've caused it to sink. There was no point in being homesick now, though; nothing he could do about it.

Shaking himself (partially to get the snow off of his shoulders and hair, and partially to shake the thought out of his skull), he gazed around the town from his perch, and smiled at seeing the rest of his family setting to work clearing off their own roofs. At least he wasn't alone.

The thought cheered him as he shoved the last clump of snow to the ground. He then surveyed his roof: With the snow finally gone, he could clearly see the three patches he'd already made to the thing in the six months he'd been here. But there, close to his doorway, was a small hole that was probably going to get bigger if he didn't do something about it. Luckily he'd accidentally acquired some spare wood earlier...

Another trip down and up the side of his house enabled him to bring up some flat pieces of wood from his newly-broken chair, a hammer, and a handful of bent nails that he hoped would be enough to hold the planks to his roof. Work was slow-going, and by the time he finished (after nearly breaking his thumb with the hammer and subsequently falling off the roof), he sat at the edge of his roof, let out a long sigh, his tall frame drooping and legs hanging from the edge like they had weights tied to them.

All of this work and all of this snow only served to remind him of how far he was from home, how different everything was now, how...

BAM!

The world spun roughly five times before his skull hit the snowbank. He tried to pull himself upright, only to realize that not only was his body not connected, it was also still sitting on the roof, and attempting to move it only caused that to crash to the ground, too. Over the clattering of his own bones, he could hear the sound of someone trying very hard to conceal their giggles and failing. Said giggles, he knew, could only belong to one person.

"Ah-hah, very funny, Sobrina Isadora..." Héctor grumbled as he struggled to arrange his bones. Lifting his head out of the snow, he could see her standing a short distance off, her hands covering her mouth as she tried to conceal her smile. To her credit, she looked a little embarrassed over it.

"Sorry, Tío Héctor!" she said, voice muffled by the mismatched gloves on her hands. "I didn't mean to hit you that hard!"

Isadora had been, when she'd died, a couple years younger than Héctor himself, making her the youngest resident of Shantytown. Technically she was close enough in age to call him cousin, but she liked to try to make him feel like an old man by calling him tío instead. In return (and with her permission), he called her his sobrina, or niece.

With a sly grin, Héctor set his head just barely atop his neck, and spun it around to fasten it like a screw, causing her to burst into laughter that she couldn't hide. "Sure you didn't," he said, rubbing his head to make the world stop spinning after that trick. Then, remembering why he'd needed to reattach his head in the first place, he glanced around the ground for the weapon. "What'd you hit me with, anyway?"

"With this." Isadora stooped down, scooping up a handful of snow and crushing it together into a ball shape. "See?" And before he could answer, she chucked it at him, barely missing his shoulder.

"Well, two can play at that game, eh?" Chuckling, Héctor reached down, picked up a clump of snow, and attempted to pack it into a round shape. It was a bit difficult with his hands as near-numb as they were, but he managed to pack it into... some sort of shape before tossing it at his niece.

The snow-lump sailed roughly half-a-foot forward before it thudded against the ground. Isadora crossed her arms, looking exaggeratedly unimpressed. "Híjole, you really throw like an old man, Tío Héctor."

"Hmph!" Héctor turned away, crossing his arms and shivering. "I could throw better if I had..." Something thwapped against him, but it wasn't a snowball this time; instead, Isadora had thrown a pair of gloves at him. They were slightly different sizes, but they fit well enough, and he smiled as he put them on. "Gracias, sobrina!"

"De nada, Tío Héctor!" she said as he turned around, pretending to pick his tools up off the ground.

"Now I can do... _this_!" And he whipped around, tossing a properly-formed snowball at her and hitting her square in the kneecap. She stumbled in surprise, falling back into the snow, and Héctor worried for a brief moment before she burst into laughter again. Laughing a bit himself, he helped her up, only to yelp when she slapped a handful of snow against his face and bolted off down the snowy boardwalk.

Héctor chased after her, slipping more than a few times in the snow, but finding he didn't care so much now. Along the way he managed to grab another clump of snow, waiting for his opportunity as he ran. He grinned when Isadora slipped on a patch of ice, and readied his snowball.

It slipped out of his hand as something nailed him in the back, knocking the wind out of him. His top half spun around while his legs scrambled on the ice to catch up, and he spotted his Primo Antonio gathering up snow in his hands. The man smiled at them, calling: "You two can't have all the fun, you know!"

"You're right!" Isadora shouted, and sent a snowball flying at him.

Before Héctor knew it, half a dozen other skeletons had joined them as they all partook in what had become the first snowball fight he'd ever had in his life. Yes, he was still freezing and yes, he missed home, but for now he could put that out of his head as he focused more on dodging projectiles while tossing more of them himself and joining in with the others’ laughter.

One snowball nailed his shoulder while he tossed one at a tío's rib cage. Another sailed over his head, and he managed to hit his prima in the arm. Everyone had a laugh when Primo Antonio accidentally threw his entire arm, his hand still holding the snowball, and Héctor managed a rather impressive shot by hitting one cousin in the middle, knocking a single vertebrae out of alignment and causing the man's torso to crash into the snow while his legs ran around frantically.

The fight continued like that for some time, and Héctor found himself grinning as he scooped together another snowball, trying to figure out who he should aim at next. To his surprise, the others were starting to back away from him warily. He didn't think he was really that scary (it wasn't exactly hard to make a nearly-forgotten skeleton fall apart), but he'd take it. Grin widening, he stretched out his arm to let another snowball fly. "All right, who's next?"

"You are, idiota."

WHAM.

Héctor found himself brought to the ground by an _enormous_ clump of snow slammed directly onto his head. Shortly afterward he realized who it was that had spoken up behind him.

" _CLEAN! MY ROOF!_ "

Shakily rising to his feet, Héctor looked back to see Chicharrón storming off to his bungalow, and breathed a resigned sigh. "Lo siento, guys. Forgot I owed him that one." He shook the snow off of himself, grimacing as some of it fell into his rib cage, chilling him from the inside out.

"Ay, why do you put up with him?" Isadora grumbled, brushing some of the snow off of Héctor's shoulders. "All he does is yell at everyone and push you around!"

"He doesn't yell at _everyone_ ," Héctor protested, only to give an embarrassed smile at the looks the others gave him. "Okay, maybe he does, but... he still helps me out sometimes."

"Sometimes?" His niece cocked an eyebrow at him. "He picks on you _all_ the time."

"I mean, he was the one that brought me to Shantytown in the first place, found me a place to stay. And... I just don't think he's as bad as he seems, you know?" Héctor shrugged helplessly. "No lo se... Anyway, I really do need to help him out. Have fun with your game."

The snowball fight resumed (with slightly less vigor than before) as he trudged back to his house, retrieving the broom he'd been loaned before crossing town to Chicharrón's bungalow again. As it turned out, he was one of the few people who did own a ladder (unsurprisingly, given how much other stuff he owned), which he allowed Héctor to use to reach the roof. This one was significantly larger, more slanted, and not made of wood, but he wouldn't argue. Cleaning off his own roof would've been more of a literal pain if Chicharrón hadn't lent him the broom, and if Chich hadn't suggested that he clear it off in the first place, his roof may have eventually caved in. Still, clearing off Chicharrón's roof was slow-going, and Chicharrón offered no help himself.

By the time he finished his task, it was a little after midday, and Héctor's bones ached from the effort. He let the broom slide off the roof and down to the foot of the porch, and, too tired to attempt the ladder, let himself slip down as well, breaking apart as he hit the ground and reforming. The task had been difficult and not at all fun, and at this point he just wanted to go home and huddle up in his hammock. But before he could leave, Chicharrón called out to him from the doorway:

"Where d'you think you're going?"

Wincing, Héctor turned around. "Home. I'm tired, Chich. You've got your roof cleaned, so I'd like to head home now."

Chicharrón eyed him. "Not yet. Get in here." And he stepped back into the bungalow before Héctor could protest.

Héctor muttered under his breath, but followed the old man into his shack. Rather than demand Héctor do some other task for him, though, he tossed him a towel, sat him down on a rickety chair, and set a blanket next to him. Okay, so maybe that wasn't so bad. "Gracias, Chich," he said, drying himself off as best as he could.

The old man only grunted before stomping outside. He was gone for a longer length of time than Héctor expected, and Héctor might have worried had he not been wrapped in a blanket and dozing off. But Chicharrón did return with, to Héctor's surprise, hot tea. "How did you...?"

"Built a fire outside," Chich said, and shoved one of the chipped mugs into Héctor's hands. "Now shut up."

Chicharrón pulled up another chair next to Héctor's and sat in silence, which was only broken when one of the two took a sip of the tea. It was too bitter for Héctor's tastes, but he wasn't going to complain about a hot drink on a day like this.

He glanced over at Chicharrón, who was staring down at his drink thoughtfully, and Héctor found himself doing the same. While Héctor had been here half a year, he wasn't sure he'd seen the old man offer a drink to anyone else, or help anyone the way he helped Héctor.

"Chich?"

"Hm?" Chicharrón didn't look up.

"Why is it that you're... that you help me, as much as you do?"

The old man finally looked up, his gaze narrowed at him, and for a second Héctor regretted asking the question. But Chicharrón's gaze softened as he leaned back in his chair. "People are jerks," he relented, looking Héctor in the eye, "but not you."

Héctor stared. "Really...? Chich, that's..."

Chicharrón went on, scowling, "You're an insufferable pain-in-the-tailbone and if someone wasn't watchin' out for you, you'd make everyone's lives hell."

At first Héctor was stunned, but as he looked the old man over, he felt himself smile. "So you're saying you like me."

"I'm sayin' shut up and drink your tea before it gets cold, you sentimental sap."

Now grinning, Héctor obliged, taking another sip of his tea.

It wasn't the same as being with his family, with Imelda and Coco and Ernesto, but for now, Héctor could be happy spending a quiet moment with a good friend.


End file.
